Friday 17th October

[RogerOThornhill]

Farage using the Express to scaremonger about immigration? Surely not!

https://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/5 ... 32/photo/1

1m migrants to flood Britain.

Apparently 1m more immigrants are due to flood into Britain before the EU referendum.

More racist crap from Farage.

Still the BBC will relentlessly promote him.

Just reading the article on Farage and his possible constituency that someone posted earlier.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n19/james-meek/in-farageland" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In the decorous company of sixth-formers or international businesspeople, Farage will insist he isn’t against immigration, or Europe, or Europeans – only against British membership of the European Union. Being anti-immigration, he has said, would be ‘moronic’

Right...

[RogerOThornhill]

From that same article...

In 2012, Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, published a report called They’re Thinking What We’re Thinking: Understanding the UKIP Temptation, based on a poll of twenty thousand people and 14 focus groups. He concluded that people were drawn to vote Ukip not because of its policies on Europe or immigration, but because it was the only party that gave voice to the cloud of fears, grumbles and prejudices they had previously been too afraid to utter:

Schools, they say, can’t hold nativity plays or harvest festivals any more; you can’t fly a flag of St George any more; you can’t call Christmas Christmas any more; you won’t be promoted in the police force unless you’re from a minority; you can’t wear an England shirt on the bus; you won’t get social housing unless you’re an immigrant; you can’t speak up about these things because you’ll be called a racist; you can’t even smack your children. All of these examples, real and imagined, were mentioned in focus groups by Ukip voters and considerers to make the point that the mainstream political parties are so in thrall to the prevailing culture of political correctness that they have ceased to represent the silent majority.

It's not the traditional political parties that have created the modern UKIP, it's the scummy media like the Mail, Express, Sun and Star.

They're the ones who peddle this nonsense and the anti-EU crap day after day - to sell papers they've created a monster - and now they're (some of them) back-peddling like mad trying to put the genie back in the bottle (if I can mix my metaphors!).

Too late. All those stories are now 'facts' that are ingrained into the UKIP memory like the couple on Panorama the other night where the wife said "As soon as they come over, they get given somewhere to live"..

If the Tories lose because of defections then the Tory papers only have themselves to blame.

[LadyCentauria]

The Independent ‏@Independent · 3h3 hours ago
Fresh inquiry will examine the public funding of a defunct charity with links to David Cameron http://ind.pn/1sxjSbz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Can't read this as the indy crashes my computer...

This article, from two days ago, might work without crashing your comp:
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/national-a ... le/1317311

[Hobiejoe]

Evening all. News from behind the bar is that a regular (albeit six-monthly) punter who has always had interesting things to say about interesting stuff in a broad spread of educational stuff turns out to be an ex-deputy head who was an early Ofsted inspector.

I happened to mention Gove in a chat about our local schools rescueing an ex-E-act academy, and he was splendidly splenetic about Gove.

You never know who you meet in a good pub, so get yer arses to a good pub before we're gone.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Evening all. News from behind the bar is that a regular (albeit six-monthly) punter who has always had interesting things to say about interesting stuff in a broad spread of educational stuff turns out to be an ex-deputy head who was an early Ofsted inspector.

I happened to mention Gove in a chat about our local schools rescueing an ex-E-act academy, and he was splendidly splenetic about Gove.

You never know who you meet in a good pub, so get yer arses to a good pub before we're gone.

The real challenge I find is getting my arse out of a pub.

[RogerOThornhill]

Talking of schools...Warwick Mansell did a talk the other night about Regional Commissioners.

https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/lfl/ ... arText.pdf

Something caught my eye which comes form an internal DfE document.

The agenda paper confirmed that a range of influential outside voices had been pushing for this change. It said:

“Articles by Sir Michael Wilshaw [the chief inspector of schools], the IPPR [the Labour-­‐leaning think-­‐tank] and Tristram Hunt [the shadow education secretary] are all indicative of the increasing pressure on the department to set out its position
on the middle tier. “Releasing the Chancellor adverts [which would happen in December, under the new title of Regional Schools Commissioners] will inevitably spark up some interest. Is it realistic to maintain the current approach to external
comms?”

So Hunt was part of the external noise that forced Gove into finally giving way on a middle tier?

[LadyCentauria]

Evening all. News from behind the bar is that a regular (albeit six-monthly) punter who has always had interesting things to say about interesting stuff in a broad spread of educational stuff turns out to be an ex-deputy head who was an early Ofsted inspector.

I happened to mention Gove in a chat about our local schools rescueing an ex-E-act academy, and he was splendidly splenetic about Gove.

You never know who you meet in a good pub, so get yer arses to a good pub before we're gone.

Very true. I've met so many truly interesting people at our local. It's a true Free House, with a brilliant landlady (she is a former teacher) and her staff whose love and care for the ever-changing cast of ales, beers, wines, ciders, perries, and customers, really make the place. People might come, the first time, for the ales but they come back (often from very far afield, for the place itself, for being included in conversations, for the feeling of being made welcome and a part of 'the village', however often or rarely they turn up. And for the drinks, of course, produce of a different small brewery every week. Thankfully, there's a good cuppa to be had but I often wish I still drank 'cause everyone else's pints and half-pints smell so good they must taste great...